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When writings are gathered together into a collection with a unifying principle, some critical questions arise with regard to the collection as such, in the light of that unifying principle, which do not arise in the same way with regard to the individual writings which make it up.
Where the canon of scripture is concerned, these critical questions have been comprehensively termed ‘canonical criticism’.
One of the most important critical questions has been formulated thus: ‘Which form of the text is canonical?” The question is often asked in relation to the New Testament, and some of those who ask it are prepared themselves to give it a quite confident answer. But when it is asked in relation to the New Testament, it is helpful first to consider it in relation to the Old Testament.
Which form of the Old Testament text is canonical? If the question is put to orthodox Jews, their answer is not in doubt: it is the traditional form, the Masoretic text of the Hebrew scriptures. And many scholars, Jews and Gentiles alike, will agree that, of all the extant varieties of text, the Masoretic is most reliable. It is no doubt
’ This question forms the heading ofa section in the last chapter ofB. M. Metzger, The Ccrrton ~,lthrNtw Temcnt (Oxford, 1987). p.267.
subject to correction here and there, but no rival variety of Hebrew text-for example, that which appears to underlie the Septuagint version- can hold a candle to it.
But which form of the Old Testament text was recognized as canonical, or at least authoritative, by our Lord and his apostles, or by the New Testament writers in general? No one form.
One might expect that writers in Greek would use an accessible Greek version of the ancient scriptures, that is to say, the Septuagint.
The New Testament writers did this to a very considerable extent.
Luke and the writer to the Hebrews in their biblical citations and allusions adhere quite closely to the Septuagint wording. But other New Testament writers exercise greater freedom.
In Matthew 12: 18-2 1 there is a quotation from Isaiah 42: l-4 in a Greek form which is markedly different from the Septuagint. The Septuagint version of Isaiah 42:l identifies ‘my servant’ as Israel,’
which would not have suited Matthew’s purpose. A New Testament writer may quote the Old Testament in a form closer to the Hebrew construction; he may even quote it in a form paralleled neither in the Septuagint nor in the traditional Hebrew text, but in an Aramaic paraphrase or targum. For example, both Paul and the writer to the Hebrews quote Deuteronomy 32:35 in the form ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’ (Rom. l2:l9; Heb. 10:30). This follows neither the familiar Hebrew wording (‘Vengeance is mine, and recompense’) nor the Septuagint (‘In the day of vengeance I will repay’), but it agrees exactly with the targumic version. Occasionally, indeed, there is evidence of the use of a text resembling the Samaritan edition of the Pentateuch.3 It looks at times as if the New Testament writers enjoyed liberty to select a form of Old Testament text which promoted their immediate purpose in quoting it: certainly they did not regard any one form of text as sacrosanct.
In this they have provided a helpful precedent for us when we are told (especially on theological, not critical, grounds) that one form of New Testament text is uniquely authoritative. In the eighteenth century William Whiston maintained that what we call the ‘Western’
’ ‘Jacob my servant, I will help him; Israel my chosen one, my soul has accepted him.’
3 The statement in Acts 7:4 that Abraham left Harran for Canaan ‘after his father died’ agrees with the chronology of the Samaritan text of Gen. 11:26- 12:4 rather than with that of the Masoretic text or Septuagint version. See p.54.
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text was the true, ‘primitive’ form of the New Testament.4 In the second half of the nineteenth century John William Burgon vigorously defended the exclusive right of the ‘Byzantine’ text (the text exhibited by the majority of Greek manuscripts from the fifth to the fifteenth century) to be recognized as authentic and ‘inspired’.’ There are some who continue to maintain this position.6 In his day there were those who held, on the other hand, that the text established by a succession of leading scholars on the basis of the earliest manuscripts should displace the Byzantine or ‘majority’ text as ‘canonical’. A Scats Bible teacher of a past generation used to affirm in public that ‘where Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort agree, there you have verily what the Spirit saith’.’ That viewpoint was widely shared; nowadays few would venture to speak so positively, even on behalf of such an excellent publication as K. Aland’s revision of E. Nestle’s edition of the Greek New Testament.*
In more recent times the topic of ‘canonical criticism’ has been introduced, especially by B. S. Childs.’ In canonical criticism the techniques of critical study are practised in relation to the Old or New Testament canon as such, or to the form in which any one of the individual books was finally included in the canon. It is true that, for nearly all books of the Bible, the final canonical form is the only one directly accessible to us: any earlier form must be in some degree a matter of speculation or reconstruction. (Occasionally one can distin- 4 W. Whiston, The Primitive New Testament Restor’d(I_ondon, 1745). The ‘Western’
text is represented by Codex Bezae (D) of the Gospels and Acts (seep. 12) and by Co&x CfaromontanuJ (g) of the letters of Paul (see p.218), as well as by a variety of other witnesses.
s Burgon’s best-known statement of this position is his learned work, The Revision Revised (London, 1883).
6 E.g. E. F. Hills, The King James Version Defended.’ (Des Moines, 1956); J. van Bruggen, The Ancient Text
of
the New Testament, E.T. (Winnipeg, 1976); W. N.Pickering, The Identity ofthe New Testament Text (Nashville/New York, 1977).
’ The Bible teacher was John Brown (1846-1938), once well known among Christian Brethren in Scotland. K. Lachmann, S. P. Tregelles, C. van Tischendorf, and (together) B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort between 1831 and 1881 published successive editions of the Greek New Testament based on the text of the earliest witnesses then available.
s Nestle-Aland, Nmtum Trrtamentum Graece (Stuttgart, 1979). The critical apparatus of this edition is the work ofK. and B. Aland; the text is practically identical with that of The Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies, ’ 1975).
9 See B. S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Te.rtament as Scripture (London, 1979), pp.74- 105; The New Testament ar Canon: An Introduction (London, 1984), pp.521-
530.
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guish two ‘canonical’ forms of a book, as in the book of Jeremiah: there is the longer form preserved in the Masoretic text and a shorter Greek form preserved in the Septuagint, and both were canonized.)”
It may be argued that the final canonical form is that which should be acknowledged as the valid standard of authority in the church. But the textual or historical critic will not be deterred from working back to the form in which the document first appeared, or as nearly as it is possible to get to that form. And it may equally be argued that, if apostolic authority is the chief criterion of canonicity in the New Testament, the form of the letter to the Romans (say) as Paul dictated it and Tertius wrote it down must be its most authoritative form. To be sure, where the Pauline letters’are concerned, textual critics would be happy if they could establish the wording of the first edition of the Pauline corpus, but even that (ifattainable) would be pre-canonical. ”
‘ A S O R I G I N A L L Y G I V E N ’
It might be thought at first blush that insistence on the final canonical form stands at the opposite pole from insistence on the text ‘as originally given’, which finds expression in some present-day state- ments of belief. The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, for example, confesses its faith in ‘the divine inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scripture, as originally given, and its supreme authority in all matters of faith and morals’. I2 The phrase ‘as originally given’ does not imply that the qualities of inspiration and infallibility belong to some lost and irrecoverable stage of the biblical text; it implies rather that these qualities should not be ascribed to defects of transmission and translation.
In another context the phrase ‘as originally given’ might refer to earlier forms of a biblical book which have been discerned by the exercise of literary or historical criticism. For example, it has been argued persuasively by David Clines that the ‘proto-Masoretic’ book of Esther comprised the first eight chapters only; not only so, but he goes farther back and envisages a ‘pre-Masoretic’ form of the book. I3 Could one say that one or other of these forms should be identified with the
” The shorter form was originally a variant Hekrew edition, which is represented by a fragmentary manuscript from Qumran (4QJer ). As the Septuagintal form it was
‘canonized’ by the Greek-speaking church.
” See pp. 129f. ” See Et~angehl Be/zef(Inter-Varsity, 1935; ’ 1961).
I3 D. J. A. Clines, The Eher ScrolL: TheStory oftbe Story (Sheffield, 1984).
book of Esther ‘as originally given’? Or, to take a New Testament example, some scholars have held that, when Pap& wrote of Matthew’s compilation of ‘the oracles in the Hebrew speech’,14 he referred not to our Gospel of Matthew but to an early collection of sayings of Jesus which constituted a major source for the evangelists Matthew and Luke (the source of the so-called ‘Q’ material). is If they are right, could one say that this collection should be identified with the Gospel of Matthew ‘as originally given’? It is safe to say that such possibilities were not contemplated by the authors of the UCCF doctrinal basis. In fact, they had in view the canonical forms of the biblical books, with errors of transmission or translation removed. There is not so much difference as might appear at first blush between this position and that of Professor Childs (which is not to say, of course, that he takes the UCCF line on inspiration and infallibility).
In the ‘received text’ of the New Testament there are some passages which find no place in modern critical editions of the Greek Testament (or in translations based on these). Should such passages be recognized as canonical? There is no person or community competent to give an authoritative ruling on this question; any answer to it must be largely a matter of judgment. I6
There is, for example, the text about the three heavenly witnesses which appears in AV/KJV at 1 John 5:7. This passage is a late intruder;
it has no title to be considered part of the New Testament or to be recognized as canonical. ”
What of the last twelve verses of Mark’s Gospel (Mk. 16:9--20)?
These verses- the longer Marcan appendix- were not part ofMark’s work. That in itself would not render them uncanonical- as we have seen, canonicity and authorship are two distinct issues-but their contents reveal their secondary nature. They seem to present, in the main, a summary of resurrection appearances recorded in the other Gospels. Some readers may like to have in verse 18 canonical authority for snake-handling; the clause ‘they will pick up serpents’, however, is probably based on Paul’s encounter with the viper on Malta (Acts
I4 Seep. 125.
‘s So, e.g., T. W. Manson, Studies in the Gospelr and Epides (Manchester, 1962), pp.68- 104.
” At one time the Holy See reserved to itself the right ofp’assing final judgment on such questions: little has been heard of this right since the issue of Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Dwzno u/&nrr Sprrztn (‘by the inspiration of the divine Spirit’) in 1943.
” See F. F. Bruce, Thr Epnth o/Jdm (London, 1970), pp. 129f.
28:3 -6). The following words about drinking poison without harmful consequences are reminiscent of a story which Philip’s daughters are said to have told of Joseph Barsabbas, surnamed Justus (one of the nominees for the succession to Judas Iscariot, according to Acts 1:23). I8 The right of these twelve verses to receive canonical recognition is doubtful. I9
Then there is the story of the woman taken in adultery (Jn.
7: 5 3 - 8: 11). This certainly does not belong to the Gospel of John. It is an independent unit of gospel material, of the same general character as the Holy Week incidents in the temple court recorded in Mark
12: 13-37. ‘The account has all the earmarks of historical veracity’,20 and as a genuine reminiscence of Jesus’ ministry is eminently worthy of being treated as canonical. 21
S T A G E S O F C O M P O S I T I O N
Even in its canonical form a biblical document may be better under- stood if account be taken of successive stages in its composition.
There can be no doubt, for example, of the canonical form of the Gospel of Matthew, nor yet of its canonical position. Ever since the fourfold gospel was brought together, the Gospel of Matthew has stood at its head. A few modern editors have displaced it--be Twentieth Centuy New Testament, for example, put Mark first and Ferrar Fenton put John first- but Matthew’s traditional primacy has not been imperilled. That primacy is due not to chronological con- siderations but to Matthew’s character: it is a proper catholic intro- duction to a catholic gospel collection and, in due course, to a catholic New Testament. 22
If we had no other gospel than Matthew, we should have to exercise our critical faculties on its own internal evidence as best we might.
Happily, however, we can compare it with the other gospels (especially Mark and Luke) and thus reach firmer conclusions about its composi-
” Eusebius, Hist. Ecci. 3.39.9f.
I9 Their authenticity has been defended by J. W. Burgon, Thp Lasr Twelve Verses o/’
the Gospel amrding to S. Mark (London, 187 1); cf W. R. Farmer, The Last Tweiue Verses ofMark (Cambridge, 1974).
LO B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Tcstmmt (London/New York, 1971), p.220.
” See F. F. Bruce, The Gospel o/John (Basingstoke/Grand Rapids, 1983), pp.41 3- 418.
** Seep.153.
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tion. We may conclude, as many have done, that this evangelist used at least two written sources-one being the Gospel of Mark or something very like it, and the other being the sayings collection which underlies the ‘Q’ material (‘Q’ being a convenient shorthand symbol for the non-Marcan material common to Matthew and Luke).
Other sources have been discerned behind Matthew’s record: whether they were written or not is difficult to determine. One of these may have been a second collection of sayings of Jesus, preserved in a more conservative Jewish-Christian circle than the circle in which the other collection circulated. But, whatever sources lay at Matthew’s disposal, he treated them as an independent author, arranging his sayings material so as to form five bodies of teaching, each prefaced by a narrative section; the whole was introduced with a nativity narrative and concluded with an account of the passion of Jesus and his resur- rection appearances (the main outlines of this last account having been largely fixed at an early stage in the church’s life). A consideration of the evangelist’s probable sources and of his treatment of them thus helps one to appreciate his workmanship, together with the value of his distinctive witness to Jesus and his special contribution to the New Testament. 23
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weight to such differences between one writer and another is one against which exponents of the theology of the New Testament should be on their guard, not to speak of exponents of biblical theology as a whole. Indeed, even a work on the theology of Paul may fail to do justice to the progress of Paul’s thought as it finds expression in his chief epistles, read in chronological order. Similarly, any one who would write on the teaching of Jesus must remember that his teaching, as we have it, is mediated through several witnesses. Quite apart from the issues raised by differences of emphasis among the synoptic evangelists, the difficulty of weaving his teaching according to them and his teaching according to John into a coherent whole makes most writers on the subject decide to concentrate on the synoptists’
testimony and leave John’s on one side-at least for the time being.25
V A R I E T Y I N U N I T Y
When all the books of the Bible are brought together as parts of one canon, bound in one volume and recognized as the product of one divine Spirit, there is an inevitable tendency to emphasize the unity of the whole in such a way that differences of idiom and perspective between one writer and another are overlooked. This is the tendency that Harnack had in mind when he remarked that the process of canonization ‘works Ii&e whitewash; it hides the original colours and obliterates all the contours’. 24 But there is no good reason for allowing canonicity to efface differences of date, authorship, outlook and so forth. Critical and exegetical study can be pursued as intensively with canonical literature as with uncanonical; indeed, the fact that a body of literature is acknowledged as canonical should serve as a specially powerful incentive to such study.
However, it is not always so. The danger of failing to give sufficient
” See R. H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commntary wz his Litermy and Tbedq+al Art (Grand Rapids, 1982).
l4 A. van Harnack, TheOri~/nofthrNru,Ttstument, E.T. (London, 1925), p.141.
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Canonical exegesis may be defined as the interpretation of individual components of the canon in the context of the canon as a whole.
Even in the pre-canonical period evidence of intra-biblical inter- pretation is not lacking. In the Old Testament it can be seen how later law-codes took over the provisions of earlier codes and applied them to fresh situations, or how later prophets took up and reinterpreted the oracles of their predecessors. Ezekiel, for example, makes it plain that Gog (under other names) was the subject of earlier prophecy in Israel (Ezek. 38: 17): what had been said about him before was repeated and given fresh point with regard to a new situation. In Daniel’s visions especially one can see oracles of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel reinter- preted. Jeremiah’s prediction of seventy years’ desolation for Jerusalem (Jer. 25: 1 If.; 29: 10)IS reinterpreted to cover a period seven times as long (Dan. 9:2, 24-27)-for Daniel, Jeremiah belongs to a collection called ‘the books’. The forecast of the decline and fall of Antiochus Epiphanes in Daniel 11:40-45 is a re-presentation of the downfall of the Assyrian invader as foretold by Isaiah (Is. 14:24-27; 31:8f.) and
‘s Because ‘the modern student cannot but feel that to turn from the Synoptics to the Fourth Gospel is to breathe another atmosphere, to be transported to another world’ (H. Latimer Jackson, The Probh of the Fourth Gmpe( [Cambridge, 1918], p.82), words which would still be widely echoed. But now that the tradition ofJesus’
ministry preserved by John is increasingly recognized to be parallel to the synoptic traditions, although independent of them, it cannot properly be left out ofaccount in any presentation ofJesus’ life and teaching.
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